It's like a mechanical that happens outside the race...

Well what can I say, bay crits TICK, finally over. A return to normal life, DENIED.



Wednesday was an outstanding day, I woke up in my own bed, sure it was a 6am for no absolute reason, but hey it was home. I started off my "rest day" with a light ride around the time trial course, or a Ballarat Reacustomisation as it was raining and windy, my 2 personal favourites. I ran into alot of people doing the same, unfortunately they were obviously smarter than me as they were in cars.



The afternoon was spent in the follow car for Beth Cannys Time Trial. That probably sounds more complicated than it is but there is a simple secret to the art of the follow car, annoy the rider as much as possible so they try to get away from you quicker. Matt Smith went for the horn and the yelling, unfortunately the combination did get mixed up and minor incidences like yelling while on the horn and yelling with the window closed did occur. Not helped be our craziness in the car, beth flew into 23rd which was about 8th in under 23's. Awesome.

But on the back of her success is where the gods turned against me again. I must of ignored some one in desperate need of help over the christmas period, or about eight people in desperate need over the christmas period to get this much bad karma.

So the story goes in cronological order, starting at 2:38pm;

Crisis one - The wheels....
Cam McKenzie had organised some "mad dog" wheels for my TT off Mitch Anderson, the fastest bike ironman in the world, 180km in 4 hours 16 minutes, FREAK! Unfortunately due to Mitchs wife Bridie O'Donnell becoming violently ill during the night, these "mad dog" wheels were stuck in melboure. Luckily I have a mother who fancied a drive. It's fair to say I sold my soul for it.

Crisis 2 - The Helmet
Even though this is mean't to be chronological, it's not. At Beths time trial I learnt that they'd changed from previous policy and now all helmets had to meet Aus Standards. This was a problem, as even though I tried to lie to the chief judge for beths, lets face it my helmet had no chance at all at passing australian standards, it probably has a sticker inside it saying something like "To be only worn in an enclosed vechicle" or more simply "you crash, you die". So after some running around I scored a Lazer off Ciaran which would do the job.

Crisis 3 - Illegal position
Ever have that moment of dreamy thought about something serious but you never get around to it? Well I sure did and to be more precise Annex 6 Chapter III of the UCI technical regulations. It's pretty much that big red book that doesn't let you ride bikes that look like a metorite and only way 2.3kg. More specifically my little hiccup was to do with the length from my bottom bracket to the end of my aerobars. The big red book says it could be no more than 75cm, needless to say I was a little over, maybe a little more than a little. So until about 11pm last night we played how to make a TT bike legal, then ride the new spaceage position for the first time in a National Championships.

As for the actual race I dont really no what to say, anyone who's done a time trial before should know the basic story, it hurt, alot. I must say looking back I did have some personal highlights, like choking on a Gel just before Yendon and spending the next few kilometres washing it out of my mouth (not to mention the rest of the day washing it off me), also the first catch of the ride, it's something that you search for that first rider luckily on this course I knew if I got to the round about quick enough I'd see him going up the hill and it was on like donkey kong!

But every highlight has a lowlight, and there were those too, my follow car was pulled over 3 times by the police, if only it was for speeding and I might of won and I got caught by Cameron Wurf, I've never been caught in a time trial before but I knew today was the day and he was the one to do it. He did it alright.

Overall I was happy with my ride, the lack of prep, the new position, the lack of a proper breakfast, the lack of training due to injuries, pretty much kids if you want to win don't use this as an example! But at the end of the ride the tank was empty, and that's all you want from a tt, the ability or should i say inability to move or have a proper conversation.

The afternoon was spent on the couch watching tv before a couple of laps around the lake where a some old guy on a mountain bike kicked my arse. How humbling.

Until sunday, I may go for a ride, check out the reach for the stars, and hang out on bunny hill on saturday to witness the pain first hand! Hope everyone who's around in ballarat this weekend can get down and check out the racing either on the road or the track, should be some good hurt as always.

DT

My parting words of wisdom today once again come from Vaughan McVilly from You and I ride. To put the following in to context he was talking about ways to market me.

I'll get you a Bianchi clock for the weekend, we got them in from Italy just before xmas and they're Bianchi so it will be cool, we will do a photo shoot of you in the Kit with the Clock maybe we should just do a whole heap of random clock infested shots, town clocks, flower clocks, microwave clocks. Or I'll make a little video where Ill dress up in a cheffs outfit and get a big mixing bowl chucking a whole heap of random sideways ingredients and then wack it in the microwave for ten seconds and then it blows up and smokes everywhere ... when the smoke clears theres just u in your kit with the Bianchi Clock. Say 1 can of beer, 2 tbl spoons of sugar and a polar heart rate monitor - mix until throffing add a pinch of that girl that got away in high school, three drops of alpine goats blood and one bulls testicle and blend - put in the microwave for ten seconds and .....
booooom
Its Doyle Time!